


Trick and Treat

by mydeira, Sadbhyl



Series: Responsible Adults (aka, The Menageaverse) [100]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-12
Updated: 2013-04-12
Packaged: 2017-12-08 06:46:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/758312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mydeira/pseuds/mydeira, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sadbhyl/pseuds/Sadbhyl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ethan has a job to do on Halloween night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Trick and Treat

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mydeira](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mydeira/gifts).



> Originally published November 28, 2004
> 
> Set during Season 5 during Joyce's illness.
> 
> This is set in the Menageaverse Apocrypha. It’s kind of the first of our Five or More Things That Never Happened in the ‘Verse series, just because I couldn’t figure out on my own how to make it fit in the timeline. And I couldn’t use half my brain, because I was writing it for Mydeira for the btvs_halloween. So, enjoy it for what it is. Big thanks to [](http://eurydice72.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://eurydice72.livejournal.com/)**eurydice72** for pinch hitting on the beta, and to Mydeira for being herself. Greedy little hussy.

“You can’t be serious.”

Joyce didn’t let go of Ethan’s hand as he protested her suggestion. He looked down at her, frail body tucked up comfortably on the couch under an afghan, and his vehemence faded a bit. But not his disbelief at her request.

“I am,” she insisted. “I’m very serious. You of all people should know Halloween around here isn’t like other places. No matter how old she is, I’m not comfortable with her going out alone. Since her friend Janice is down with the flu, she can’t go with them, and I obviously can’t take her.”

“Surely there must be a better choice than me.”

“Buffy’s going out that night with her friends, and Rupert has to work.”

“So I’m obviously not the first choice,” he huffed.

She sighed. “You can’t be mad because you don’t want to do it _and_ mad because I didn’t ask you first, Ethan. Pick one.”

Caught out, he chuckled ruefully.

“It’s not because I don’t trust you,” she reassured him, stroking the back of his hand gently. “It’s just that she doesn’t know you. I know she’s as safe with you as she would be with Rupert or Buffy.”

It was these little moments of trust that undid him every time. But he couldn’t let her see that. So he sighed melodramatically. “I don’t have to dress up or anything, do I?”

She chuckled at the image. “That I would like to see. But no, escorts are supposed to look dull and proper and go largely unseen except for holding the candy bag between houses.”

“When have I ever looked dull and proper?”

“Never.” She pulled him down for a slow, gentle kiss that crumbled the last of his resistance. “So you’ll do it?”

Ethan settled himself on the floor next to the couch, putting his arms around her as he bent closer to her mouth. “Convince me some more.”

She was smiling when she gave herself over to his kisses.

 

 

Wonder Woman stared Ethan down in the middle of Joyce’s living room Halloween night.

Or at least she was a remarkable facsimile of the superheroine.

“Honey, I’d like you to meet Mr. Rayne,” Joyce was introducing them. “He’s a friend of mine, and I’ve asked him to take you around trick-or-treating tonight.”

“Mom!” Wonder Woman stomped her booted foot, acting remarkably like an American teenager. “I don’t need a babysitter! I’m fourteen, I can cross the streets all by myself.”

“I know. But you know that things don’t always go according to plan. I’ll just feel better knowing someone’s with you.” Joyce artlessly sank into the chair, reminding her daughter of her illness without saying a word.

Dawn glared, but Ethan could see her concession. “Fine. But make sure he knows the rules. I’m going to get a bag.”

“The rules?” he asked as she disappeared down the hall.

Joyce nodded. “The adult will not attempt to communicate with the teenager. The adult will walk eight paces behind so as not to appear in the company of the teenager. The adult will not do or say anything which could in any way potentially embarrass the teenager. Thus it is written, thus it shall ever be.”

“Oh, this should be fun.”

She rose out of the chair to pat his arm comfortingly. “Don’t worry, it won’t take long. An hour, hour and a half, tops.”

He smiled down at her, then, glancing toward the door, stepped intimately closer. “You and she have the same shoe size, yes?” he murmured into her ear.

“Usually.” She eyed him quizzically. “It depends on the shoes. Why?”

He bent lower to breathe into her oh-so-sensitive ear. “Because I’d really like to see you in those boots. And not much else.”

That wicked, conspiratorial grin he loved so much creased her face as she stepped back a discrete distance. “Play your cards right and you might.”

“Woman . . .” he growled, but before he could act on his urges, the girl returned, a canvas grocery tote in hand.

“Let’s go,” she snapped.

“Dawn,” Joyce said sternly, eyeing her daughter. “Be nice.”

She sighed the sigh of teenaged oppression.

Ethan looked at Joyce darkly. “We’ll talk later.”

“If I’m asleep when you get back, don’t bother to wake me up,” she said loud enough for Dawn to hear. Then quieter, she added, “I never know when these meds will knock me out. It’s better to just sleep when I can.”

He wanted to reach out a hand to stroke her cheek, comfort away the pain that flared briefly in her eyes, but he didn’t dare in front of the girl. So instead he stuffed his hands into his pockets and, with a last meaningful look at his lover, followed Wonder Woman out into the night.

 

The streets were teeming with children of all sizes in all manner of disguises, traveling in packs like wild animals. Ethan had never witnessed the annual ritual forage firsthand, and he was beginning to think he’d been missing out on a better opportunity than he’d realized. The buzz of chaos in the air was palpable. Hundreds of children with thousands of possible actions and hundreds of thousands of outcomes, all supplemented by sugar and adrenaline. It was a heady rush.

He was amusing himself working a different kind of chaos on Joyce’s daughter. She might be a construct, but she was still a teenage girl with all the usual hot buttons, and Ethan was enjoying pressing every one of them. He walked next to her nonchalantly until she noticed him. She glared at him before hurrying ahead of him again. He let her get comfortable with that before lengthening his stride to join her again. This pattern repeated until she was practically racing from house to house, which had the added benefit of hopefully getting them home sooner.

When that stopped entertaining him, he said, “I’m surprised your mother let you out of the house in such a skimpy little outfit.”

“Buffy’s regular clothes are a lot . . .” Dawn caught herself and whirled on him, fire flashing in her eyes. “Rules! You remember the rules?”

He grinned at her unrepentantly. “Of course. It was thoughtful of your mother to outline them for me. Makes it easier to break them when I know what they are.”

Dawn threw up her hands with a growl of frustration and stormed off.

Pulling a peppermint out of the bag he currently carried, Ethan trailed after her, unwrapping it to put it in his mouth. “So why that costume? Was there a film I missed?”

“If you must know,” she answered, not looking at him, “I had a bad experience with a girlie costume a couple of years ago. Since then I only do warriors and superheroes.”

An image of her in the rag doll costume he had sold her flashed in his mind, and he was hard-pressed to hide his smile.

“Bag,” she demanded, still not turning to face him. He slipped the loops over her hand and followed her up to the porch. She glared at him, but he just crossed his arms and leaned against the porch post. She sighed again before going up to ring the bell.

“Trick or treat!” she said brightly when the door opened.

An older woman stood there, dyed black hair and overly red lipstick doing little to hide her years. She studied Dawn critically, eyeing her with disdain. “Aren’t you a little old to be trick-or-treating?”

Dawn jerked back in surprise and Ethan straightened, sensing an attack.

“Really,” the woman continued snidely, advancing on Dawn with her bowl of treats still tightly held to her chest, “you kids today think you’re so entitled. If you want candy so bad, go out and get a job!”

The woman continued, but Ethan didn’t hear it. He muttered a brief incantation and feathered his fingers in the air, releasing a small burst of the power he had gathered over the course of the evening.

So involved in her tirade was she that the woman didn’t notice when the black wrapped taffies in her bowl shivered and shook off their wrappers to reveal the large roaches within, which proceeded to crawl out of the bowl and up her arms.

Dawn noticed them first. She screamed in surprise and disgust, backing up quickly.

“Come back here when I’m talking to you.” The woman reached out one hand to grab for Dawn and noticed the insects for the first time. She froze absolutely rigid as they made their way up her arms and onto her shoulders. It wasn’t until the first one touched the back of her neck that she finally screamed, casting the bowl aside in hysterical panic. It hit the porch floor with a hollow thunk, spilling treats and bugs across the planking. As the roaches scattered for cover of darkness, Ethan caught Dawn’s arm and led her off the porch.

“I don’t think you wanted her treats, anyway.”

Dawn stared at him in amazement. “You did that.”

He just shrugged.

“You aren’t like Mom’s other friends, are you?”

“Not in any possible way, shape or form.”

She fell into step next to him, watching him out of the corner of her eye as they walked, slipping her hand into the bag to pull out a peanut butter cup. When it was gone, she finally asked, “Wizard?”

“Sorcerer,” he corrected. “Have you had enough?”

“Not yet. I haven’t done Plummer Street yet. They have the best candy there. Full size chocolate bars.” She guided them in the proper direction. “How do you know Mom?”

He dug into the bag for another peppermint. “We share a mutual acquaintance.”

She looked at him suspiciously but didn’t pursue it. Instead she wadded up the peanut butter cup wrapper and reached back in the bag to pull out a toffee. “What else can you do?” she asked, her voice muffled by the candy sticking to her teeth.

Ethan looked around, finding a band of children up on a nearby porch counting out their swag. The porch was decorated with spider webs and corn stalks and one lone, grinning skeleton. He focused on the skeleton. “ _Anime locotore_ ,” he said clearly, exaggerating the accompanying gesture for her benefit.

The skeleton shrugged and stepped down off the wall. It looked around before approaching the children, hand outstretched. “Trick or treat,” it demanded in a slow, echoing voice.

The children took one look at it and ran off into the night screaming. A moment later the skeleton collapsed into a pile of bones.

He turned to Dawn.

She looked at him sternly. “That wasn’t very nice.”

He shrugged. “I’m not a very nice man.”

“So why did Mom ask you to watch me?”

“I have no idea.”

They walked along quietly for a while, largely ignoring the clusters of children pushing past them. Dawn stopped once at a house she thought looked promising, but came back with her nose wrinkled. “Bubble gum,” she showed him before handing him back the bag. She unwrapped the gum as they walked, popping it in her mouth and chewing thoughtfully before cracking it a few times. “You’re the one who did that thing with the costumes a couple of years ago, weren’t you?”

He fished around in the bag of another peppermint, but came up with a cherry drop instead. “What makes you say that?”

She shrugged. “Same MO. Whoever did that was only thinking about the spell, not what it would do to the kids. Some of the little ones must have really freaked out when they changed. And what about the kids dressed like Superman? What happened to them when the spell wore off and they fell out of the sky?” She looked at him sidelong. “My sister’s friend had a machine gun. He could have killed a lot of people with that. That would have devastated him.”

Her insight surprised him. She must have been, what, all of eleven when that had happened? That she’d given it so much thought showed a depth of mind unusual in a girl this age.

“Yes, it was me,” he admitted.

“Does Mom know?”

“She does.”

“Hmm.”

He waited for more questions, but she just walked along, kicking at leaves occasionally. They turned onto Plummer and she went back to work, hitting house after house methodically down the street. She held up the fruits of her labor each time she came back, candy bars and caramel apples and even the occasional dollar bill.

As they started back up the other side, they saw a couple of older boys dressed in plain street clothes down a poorly lit side street roughing up some younger children to steal their candy.

“It’s guys like that you should do something to,” Dawn said fiercely, moving towards them.

He grabbed her arm to stop her. “Why?”

“Because it would help someone!” She tried to pull away.

“What would you do?”

“I don’t know. Something to make those older boys go away, so they wouldn’t bother anyone else tonight.”

“What about this?” He muttered a few quiet words.

In the shrubs, under cars, behind trashcans, all around the boys, fiery yellow eyes blinked open.

The thugs were too busy trying to pry the bag out of Spiderman’s hand to notice. It wasn’t until the first cat tangled itself around their legs that they started to notice the dozens more approaching. The thugs backed up, releasing their hold on Spiderman. The cats paid the costumed child no mind, following after the thugs as they turned and hurried away, the cats all trailing along after them. Spiderman snatched his bag up and hurried back to the more lighted street.

Ethan looked to Dawn. “Was that more to your liking?”

“What about the cats?”

“What about them?”

“What happens when those guys get mad and start trying to kick the cats?”

“Who cares about the bloody cats?”

Dawn jammed her hands on her hips. “I do, obviously.”

Ethan stepped into her personal space. “You know, you are a very difficult young lady to please,” he said mildly.

She crossed her arms over her chest, unintimidated. “You just don’t get it.”

“Apparently not.”

Dawn just sighed and turned away.

She finished the other side of Plummer Street, and they started back towards Revello Drive. By now the majority of the trick-or-treaters had retired with their booty, leaving only a few older children like Dawn out scavenging the remains or worse, bent only on maliciousness. Dawn led him around the back of the middle school before cutting across the football field. “This is faster,” she assured him.

Or it would have been, if not for the three vampires that skulked out from under the bleachers and began following them.

“Oh, crap,” Dawn cursed bluntly, snatching the shopping tote out of Ethan’s hands to begin digging frantically through the contents.

Putting his hand at the small of her back, he guided her as they kept walking, faster now. He glanced back over his shoulder to see the demons keeping pace. One grinned ferally at him, jagged razor teeth glinting in the sodium light. “I thought vampires took All Hallows off?”

“Mostly they do,” she said, still searching. “But since _someone_ ,” she glanced at him pointedly, “decided to play April Fool’s six months early, now every year there are always a couple that risk taking a chance.”

“Dawn, I don’t think sweets are going to placate them.”

“No, but this might.” And with a flourish and a tumble of candies, she held up a stake.

“Marvelous.” He grabbed it out of her hand. “What else have you got in there?”

It was her turn to glance back. “Nothing that’s going to help. Your turn.”

“My turn?”

“You’re the big, powerful sorcerer. Haven’t you got a fireball or something?”

“Dear girl, be reasonable. This isn’t Dungeons and Dragons.”

“Tara and Willow have this neat little sunshine spell they can do.”

“Had I given it any thought, I might have, too, but combat magics aren’t my forte.” His mind raced, trying to put together what he _could_ do in a useful way. “Okay, there may be something. But I can only manage two of them. You will have to get the third.”

“Me?” Her voice dropped to a panicked wheeze.

“Yes, you.” Taking the bag of candy, he slapped the stake back into her palm. “Take the one in the middle. Believe me when I tell you he’s going to be _very_ surprised.”

“I’m not very good with these things.”

“Be good. Be better than good. After I do this, I’m going to be worthless. It’ll be up to you. Are you ready?”

The footsteps were sounding closer behind them when she finally swallowed and nodded.

Instantly he started gathering up every ounce of energy he could get his hands on short of tapping her. The energy of the sacrament within her would most likely be more than enough to power what he had planned, but he had no idea how stable she was. Better to play it safe so they both walked away from this. “ _Duo flagello imperio_!”

With a sudden twist he turned on them, snapping his wrists towards the two vampires on either end. Purple light swelled beneath their feet, the only warning they had before the air cracked and twin columns of electricity arced from nowhere to pin the vampires in place, roasting them from the inside.

“Dawn, now!” Ethan roared, trying to maintain control of the lightning bolts long enough for them to do their job. The girl responded instantly, dropping the shopping bag to sprint the fifty feet back towards the attacking vampires. As Ethan had predicted, the middle one was in shock from the unexpected attack against his comrades, reeling between them, unable to do anything. Dawn didn’t hesitate. Grabbing him by one shoulder, she held him in place the moment it took for her to plunge the stake through his ribs and into his heart. The creature cried out in pain, confusion written large on his face as he disintegrated. His cohorts followed an instant later.

Finally able to release the spell, Ethan collapsed onto the grass, gasping for breath.

Dawn was at his side in an instant. “Are you okay?”

He nodded, panting. “Just . . . give me a moment.”

She sat down next to him, pulling the bag of candy closer. She fished around inside until she found one of the precious full sized chocolate bars, which she proceeded to unwrap and split in two, offering him half. He took it gratefully.

They sat like that for a while, quietly nibbling away at the chocolate as the night moved on around them. “Your mother won’t be very happy about this, will she?” he finally asked.

“No, probably not.”

He took another bite of chocolate. “Might be better if we didn’t tell her, then.”

She looked at him in surprise.

“Just in the interests of her health, you understand.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right.” She remained as serious as he was. “We wouldn’t want her to have an attack or something.”

“My thoughts exactly.” He finished the chocolate and finally dragged himself to his feet, offering her his hand to help her up. “So what do you think, did I do better this time?”

She studied the smoking holes in the turf for a moment. “The groundskeepers are going to have a hell of a time fixing that.”

Ethan looked at her in disbelief. “You know, I think you’re just doing this to get my goat.”

After a moment, she grinned wickedly. “You might be right.”


End file.
